Strategy Guides/Fake News
The following are strategies and tips for the newly released Fake News scenario. Please feel free to add your own below: Strategy 1 This scenario might just be really easy because I got 3 Biohazards (69,500+ points, 369 days) on my 2nd try. Whatever the case, here's a thrice-tested strategy that got more or less the same results each time. MANIFESTO: Shooting for something realistic and convincing, I took a socialist-style path (which gave a random bonus to Plausibility halfway through each time) which included the following: *Type of News: Financial *Started by: Communists *Motive: Political Gain *Target(s): The Elite For best results, play the game at the slowest speed at first, because you will get slammed with a lot of red infect bubbles fairly early on. 1. Begin in Sweden, and use the 1 DNA/Funds point to buy Word of Mouth. As soon as you get another point, spend it on Internet. Immediately, this should spawn half a dozen bubbles in random countries, which is why the early game is best played in slow speed. 2. As this is a very fast-paced and aggressive scenario, the following traits are best obtained in this approximate order, as soon as you have the points to afford them: *Social Media Presence *Influencers *Hire Fake Experts *Accusations of Bias *TV Targetting *Memes (optional but c'mon. Memes.) 3. Building Community is important to keep your Deceived population decieved, andso around this point turn focus to some of those traits: *Community Development *Fundraising *Community Travel *Peer-to-Peer Messages 4. A lot of this scenario is also a race between the Deceived population and the Informed population. Before the Fact-Checking ("Cure") starts, throw down a few more traits for increased plausibility: *Talk Show *Buy a TV Network *Onboard Politician *Onboard Political Party *Tweet Mean Things *Impersonate Fact-Checkers *Buy a Newspaper 5. On lower difficulties, the Informed population will most likely be your primary opponent as you race to try and see how controls 50% of the population first, while on Mega-Brutal, the Fact-Checking ("Cure") will be more likely to sideline you if you're not watching it closely. As such, by the time the Fact-Checking starts or is around 2-25%, it's time to use tactics to crush these opponents. The abilities in Black/Dark Red are powerful trump cards to play if/when the cure starts moving too fast or if the Informed population starts growing too high, but even then with everything going on, don't forget to beef up your Virality/Plausibility/Community. Like before, snag these abilities as soon as your DNA/Funds points allow you to: *Fund Opposition *Unpopular Opposition *Expand Victim List *Expand Blame List *Discredit Experts *Misinformation Merge 6. By this point you should be fighting a very fast-paced battle between the Fact-Checkers and your Decieved Population. You will most likely have plenty of Funds to do what you please, but for speedy results, a few other traits can tie up the game nice and quickly: *Harass Critics *Exploit Institutions *Discredit Information Sources 7. And lastly... Misinformation Reshuffle—This one is huge and will deck a large chunk of Informed people as well as lop off a big chunk of the fact-checking. If you've played your cards right up to this point, this is where you cinch an easy win because once you've deceived half the world's population, virality and plausibility max out, fact-check progress gets decimated, and the remaining half of the world gets swayed within seconds. If you have any extra funds at this point feel free to blow them off on some overkill, but otherwise, this tactic should net 3 Biohazards on any difficulty including Mega-Brutal, and a score somewhere around 69,000 (for Mega-Brutal). And all in all, it should only take about 400-450 days. Strategy 2 - MEGA BRUTAL The following strategy has been confirmed on iOS 03/02/2020 Introduction Strategy 1 didn't work for me on Mega Brutal, but after a few goes I have just managed to beat this on Mega Brutal. When going against Mega Brutal, the key to to focus on getting the "Funds" to keep the Fact Checkers at bay. In order to do this, we need to keep things balanced. The Strategy Manifesto * Type: Cultrual Fake News * Started By: The Elderly * Motivattion: Undermine Democracy * Blaming: Students * Start country: China. For this strategy to work, you need a big population. You don't want to alert the world too soon, or they will be fact checking way before you can cope. You need to build a solid base for your story before you get caught out. STEP 1 Start in China as above and collect your first Funds. Feel free to manually pause if you wish. Open up the manifesto, and set it as above, then move over to Growth, select "Word of Mouth" and evolve it to get started. STEP 2 Move quickly here, so please don't fast forwards and make sure you pause to get those bubbles. Each one is vital, so make sure you pop them all. As soon as you have 1 Funds, Evolve "Internet" then head back over to the main screen and pop all the bubbles. Don't miss any. As soon as you have popped them, pause and head into the news menu again. STEP 3 Now we need to balance. So, as soon as you get the funds, you need to evolve the following in this order (Evolve them one at a time, even if you have the Funds. You don't want to miss out on DNA Bubbles): * Influencers * Hire Fake Experts * Out of Context * Fabricate Data * Tweet Mean Things (Adaptability) * Accusations of Bias (Adapatbility) STEP 4 By now, funds will have slowed. Virality and Plasuabilty should be level (or there abouts) and you should see around 8-10million people being informed. Your devieved will be low. Very low, around 800-1200. We now need to increase our funds again, so this time we will be evolving back on the Growth Page. Remember, evolve in this order and only evolve one per time. Go back to the main screen and pop all the bubbles each time. * Social Media Presence (Go and pop the balloons) * Bot Network 1 (Go and pop the balloons) STEP 5 You should have a few funds now, so we need to focus on keeping what few idiots we have. We now need to focus a little on Community. So again, in this order and one at a time: Community Development Onboard a Politician STEP 6 We are now looking at getting the news out even further, but whilst we do this we need to maintain as low a profile as possible. We ma have 1 country already starting the Fact Checking of our news, so now we need to balance and adapt as the story progresses. We need to get the story out, up the Community and maintain the Plausability. From here on in, Virality is our enemy. * Talk Show (Growth) Impersonate Fact Checkers (Adaptability) * Fundraising (Growth) * Community Travel (Growth) - Remember to pop the bubbles here, you've just spread the word again. * Onboard a Political Party (Growth) STEP 7 At this point, the world is now starting to check the facts. You're likely to be up against a few countries leading the way, and facts checked by about 3-5%. Word is spreading, and your plausability is nice and high. Community is doing well, and your Virality should be about level with Plausability. We need to now go on the defensive, as the Mega Brutal difficulty level will see the Fact Checking Rocket. As soon as funds become available, we hot up the Adaptability Page: * Fund Opposition * Harass Critics * Unpopular Opposition * Discredit Experts * Discredit Information Sources STEP 8 We are now at the point where will will hope to start to take over the world. We need to keep the Fact Checking at bay, but also get the message out. So, we balance the message with the fight, and throw in a few more DNA Generating moves too. In order: * Buy a TV Network (Growth) * Bot Network 2 (Growth) * Defmation Lawsuits (Adaptability) * Buy a Newspaper (Growth) * Peer-to-Peer Messages (Growth) STEP 9 By this point you should be well on your way. You should have unlocked the additional Adaptability traits now. We will now focus on battling the Fact Checking. You should be well in front at this moment, a high Virality with a good Plausibility and Community. You should also have well over 1bn people corrupted. So, as soon as the funds permit, lets hit up the Adaptability tab: * Co-opt 'Fake News' Trigger Moral Panic * Provoke Authorities * Destabalise Government STEP 10 This is the final push now. Fact Checking will have slowed down (but this is Mega Brutal, so it is still fast) and our funds will be slow. So, we balance off again with a mix of Attack and Defense: * Viral Chat Messages (Growth) - Make sure you collect all the bubbles immediately * Hack Experts (Adapatability) * Podcasts (Growth) - Again, make sure you collect all bubbles * Cat Memes (Growth) * Billboard (Growth) * Radio Targeting (Growth) AND THAT IS IT! The End Congratulations, you should have convinced half the world. Plausibility and Viraility max out, copycats starts and countries will be completely convinced with your story. Fact Checking drops quicker than a tweet from Donald Trump and the world is deceived. This should give you a full 3 Bio-hazards on Mega Brutal, with a score of over 64000, all in around 400-410 days. Evidence Mega Brutal is pretty hard to beat, but here is some proof that the above strategy worked for me. Category:Strategy Category:Strategy guides Category:Scenarios Category:Fake News